There are currently a number of controllers which allow for both human and autonomous control. However these controllers are developed with individual, long term use in mind, and so often require specific user adaption and training in order to be operated correctly. As well as this, the control algorithm is often developed for people with severe disabilities, and thus autonomous control is given precedence to manual control, for example as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,842,692. Inventors: Fehr; Linda et al.
A device has been found that that allows the user to manually control the wheelchair, with object detection used to prevent collision, as described in European Patent Publication No: EP2302480A1, Inventor: Smithers, Tim. However the autonomous control of the device is inherently reactive and is limited to augmenting the path of the wheelchair to avoid objects in its local vicinity, which means that fully autonomous control is not possible.
Current wheelchairs with autonomous control receive commands from the user using methods such as voice recognition and switches such as the aforementioned U.S. Pat. No. 6,842,692 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,108,592 and EP1774944A2. Another device uses a speed and control touchpad U.S. Pat. No. 6,926,106, however the device is not used for autonomous control, but as a replacement for the traditional joystick. Other patent publications in the art include U.S. Pat. No. 4,323,829; JPH08194537; US2008/300777; US2010/174432; JP20032200096; EP0314241; CN202060996 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,867,111, however none of these publications provide a reliable control interface for a semi-autonomous vehicle.
It is therefore an object to provide an improved control interface for a vehicle to provide both manual and autonomous modes.